I just read this article which says that Nick Heidfeld is targeting beating Fernando Alonso to fifth place in the drivers' championship, even though there is already a 40 point gap. http://en.espnf1.com/canada/motorsport/story/50998.html Surely he should be aiming to keep hold of his 6th place, rather than targeting the unrealistic aim of beating Alonso. We only have to look at the battle for 5th in 2008 to know that Alonso is easily the better driver. Ferrari have a much better car and plenty more resources, so I cannot understand why Heidfeld is being so optimistic. While Nick Heidfeld continues to struggle in qualifying, it won't be long before Rosberg, Massa and Petrov overtake him in the Championship.
I would have thought he'd be better focusing on keeping his seat at Renault for the rest of the season. His inability to put together a decent qauli lap could mean they try Senna as his race results are being compromised by him starting so far back. Much like the time he was at BMW.
The Ferrari isn't the fastest car out there but its still a good margin ahead of the Renault. Massa is a strange character at the moment, his head has gone and he just seems to be getting worse. I can see him either being well down the field come November, or he could hook it all up and reel the others in to claim sixth at the end of the year. At the moment I can only see Massa going backwards with Heidfeld so Alonso should be aiming for 5th as a MINIMUM.
It is surely optimistic and, unless he is confident of a development programme at Renault that will eclipse Ferrari's, it's surely an ambition that he knows must be unfulfilled. I can only think he must be talking the good talk in response to Boullier's criticism of him in an earlier thread. If the car's not up to the job he can always point to that as the thing that let him down.
Well, it's nice to see optimism at least? I think putting dragging the 4th, maybe 5th best car on the grid to 5th in the championship is unlikely as things stand, but it does only take a couple of strong weekends to put him back on track with that aim. As an aside, I'd dearly love Heidfeld to finally get a race win this season, he's currently competed in the most races, and scored the most points without one, so I'd say he deserves one in that respect. He's just never really had a good enough car to really challenge, or hasn't had the luck in wet races. Although saying that, there are definitely a good number of more talented drivers on the grid, so it'll be tough.
I got a feeling the only person who can challenge the likes of the top 5, will only be Rosberg or (maybe) Kamui.
No way he'll challenge Alonso. Ferrari are improving, whilst Renault appear to be going backwards comparitively
